


Conveyance

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Engagement, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: There was a scientific difference between secrecy and privacy. There were other ways to deliver information. Cecil understood that if he started talking, he wasn't going to stop.





	Conveyance

**Author's Note:**

> Just an explanation for something that probably doesn't require one: why we never heard anything about Cecil and Carlos' engagement. I'm still slightly disappointed, because it's easy to imagine Cecil gushing about wedding plans, but... Assuming a non-meta reason for it, maybe it was a choice.

Cecil had asked, and Carlos had said _yes_.

So, no other words mattered. Language had lost its purpose, save those three, elegant letters, forming this one morpheme. That single syllable, capturing on its own whole concepts of agreement, approval, assent. Galaxies formed because atoms said _yes_ to one another, surely.

Cecil was similarly celestial. He was starry-eyed, over the moon.

_He did not take my hand, did not help me to my feet. He dropped onto his knees, and took my whole body into his arms. He, my now-fiance, kissed me, forming that same morpheme, expressing that same unit of meaning, with his lips on mine._

When Cecil played the scene out again in his mind, this was how it sounded to him. When he finally sat down in his booth the next day, he was not reading his notes so much as rehearsing, or not even rehearsing so much as privately delighting in the news he had to share. Their news, the idea expressed in that kiss, but not only in that kiss.

Words would have been enough. That there could be more did not mean there had to be a limit one way or the other. There didn’t have to be, but.

Cecil looked down at his notes, thumbed through them. Thought about all that he could and could not say.

He understood that if he started talking, he wasn't going to stop.

* * *

It was not a secret. More people knew than the two of them. They had to file paperwork, after all. More people knew beyond the two of them, and beyond invasive government agencies.

There was a moment over dinner. A moment of heat in Cecil's throat, giddy trembling in his limbs, although no one was looking at him, specifically. Except Carlos, who squeezed Cecil's hand under the table. Carlos, who was biting his lip in anticipation, over just the cutest smile. Dizzingly cute. Or maybe Cecil was just dizzy.

Well, now or never. Actually, he could have said it any time, but he imposed this choice on himself and stood up. He did not clear his throat. He said, “Ahem.”

Now they were all looking at him. Abby, Janice, Steve. Carlos, now beaming without restraint. In the space left for Cecil to speak, he heard his fiance's foot tapping against the chair as his leg swung.

“I have an announcement to make,” he said, and then threw off all sense of pacing and gravity by going straight into the announcement. “We're engaged.”

Janice cheered. His family clapped, except Carlos, who looped an arm through Cecil's and rested his head on his fiance's elbow. Cecil grinned sheepishly, and twined his fingers with Carlos'.

Steve was particularly jubilant. He insisted on hugging them both separately, and then when Carlos got up to help clear the table, Steve caught brother-in-law and double-brother-in-law-to-be in a hug together.

“Gosh, I was wondering how long it would take!” Steve chortled. “And now we're never going to hear the end of it, huh?”

“You might not,” Cecil told them. “We need to talk colors. We were thinking turquoise and, maybe orange? So for the wedding party...”

* * *

The scientists dropped into Big Rico's as a group. It was Carlos' treat.

“So what's the occasion?” Nilanjana asked, as she set down her tray of stewed tomatoes. “Is there an occasion?”

This was not out of character, but neither was it typical. Carlos was generous, but normally they would have been celebrating a successful experiment or completed group project. Most of them were individually in the middle of something at the moment, so today did not fit the pattern.

“The occasion is best represented by this.” Carlos offered his hand to the table for inspection.

Away from the bustle and preoccupation from the lab, the other scientists noticed the ring immediately. They offered congratulations, and there were several requests for a microscopic perspective or other detailed imaging of the stone. It was a beautiful stone, probably more than the human eye could distinguish, and they wanted a more complete understanding of its properties.

“Maybe. Maybe another day. But I do not want to take it off right now,” said Carlos.

Nilanjana hypothesized, “Was Cecil waiting to announce it until you could tell the people you wanted? That's sweet.”

“Hmm.” Carlos twisted the ring back and forth on his finger, and smiled. “Cecil is waiting until we are ready. When we are ready, everyone will know.”

It was not a secret, not personal information to be omitted, or selectively avoided for relevance. It was not a matter of mere facts and logic. It was only private which was, scientifically speaking, not the same thing as secret at all.

* * *

Cecil had Earl alone in the breakroom, before a segment of “Cooking Stuff” with him. Telling him proved particularly fruitful. He offered Cecil both a discount on catering from Tourniquet, and the extravagant gift of a wedding cake.

“Aww, gosh. You don't have to do all that,” Cecil demurred, his hand pressed to his chest. “But if you feel like doing it, yes. Please. We would seriously love that.”

“I'd be glad to, really!” Earl said. “But you have to tell me everything. When did you – well, last night, I guess, if we haven't heard about it yet. But how did it go? Did you surprise him?”

“Last night? What – oh, no. It was a few days ago, actually. But it went great! He was kind of expecting it, I mean, you know. I think it would've been a little weird otherwise. But he didn't know exactly when! And the look on his face was... ” Cecil placed a hand on his own cheek, and sighed dreamily.

"Oh, I bet! I'm happy for you. Both of you. Thank you for telling me."

"Of course," Cecil said, and waved Earl out of the breakroom. The show would start soon.

It was not a secret. It was not a secret, not some fragment of forbidden knowledge to guard jealously, nor did it need to be revealed. There was nothing prescribed for him, nothing he was supposed to say. But there was something he wanted to, sometimes.

* * *

They visited Josie together. She was asleep when they came, so they tried to insist on visiting later, but Erika insisted right back that they stay. It was difficult to argue with Erika, because you could not look directly at them without trembling, and this made it hard to hold onto things like words and emotions that were not reverence.

“She'll want to hear this! It's fine,” Erika told the two of them, so they followed Erika into Josie's bedroom. Erika had already woken her.

Cecil and Carlos stood at her bedside, each with an arm around his fiance's waist.

“Sorry for bothering you,” said Cecil. “We should have checked before dropping in.”

“How are you feeling?” Carlos asked.

“I'm fine! You're not bothering me, not even a little bit.” Josie grinned at them. “Erika said you had something exciting to tell me. Sounds like you didn't want to wait, and I don't want to wait to hear it, either. Come on!”

“Cecil and I-” Carlos started, exactly as Cecil said, “Carlos and I-”

They looked at each other, and said together, “We're engaged.”

She pushed herself upright, and held out her hands. They each offered her one of theirs, to let her examine their rings, which she wholeheartedly approved of. She kissed them each once on the cheek, and hugged them, and there was strength in her touch. There was determination.

They did not need to worry about her. They would have enough to do, getting ready.

“I must be the last to know, huh?” She laughed. “That's what I get for sleeping so much.”

“Oh, not at all!” Cecil assured her. “We wanted to make sure you heard it from us, directly. That's it.”

“Well, good. Was it hard to keep him from blabbing?” She raised her eyebrows at Carlos.

"I had nothing to do with it," Carlos answered. "But I didn't object, either. There should be something that belongs just to us."

It was not a secret, and it was not something belonging only to the two of them. It was theirs to share, and they could decide who _us_ was, who _they_ were.

It belonged to more than the two of them.


End file.
